


The Rise & Fall Of Sherlock Holmes

by melliyna



Series: The Ballet Series [2]
Category: Classical Ballet, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ballet, Best Friends, Creepy, Families of Choice, Friendship/Love, Multi, OT3, Polyamory, Stalking, Threesome - F/M/M, We Just Love Each Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-26
Updated: 2012-04-26
Packaged: 2017-11-04 08:45:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/391956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melliyna/pseuds/melliyna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson is a danseur returning from rehabilitation to take part in the Royal Ballets revival production of The Firebird. Sherlock Holmes is the ballet worlds rising star and Mary Morstan is the new Principal Dancer. Together, they'll make this production and just maybe, fall in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rise & Fall Of Sherlock Holmes

**“Dance you shall,” said he, “dance in your red shoes till you are pale and cold, till your skin shrivels up and you are a skeleton! Dance you shall, from door to door, and where proud and wicked children live you shall knock, so that they may hear you and fear you! Dance you shall, dance—!”**

_The Red Shoes (Hans Christian Andersen)_

Jim has always been more than willing to be patient. It's easy enough, when you find such a delicious prize as Sherlock.

The moment he finds Sherlock has such a talent to match his own, he laughs. When he finds Sherlock Holmes has a heart, has always had a heart, Jim laughs. & he laughs.It will make his story all the better in the telling, to see such a one fall. But not before he knows why. Not before Sherlock Holmes has found what it means to have refused to _play_.

The red shoes sit in their corner, waiting, waiting. They were always made for Sherlock. Jim has been a composer for long enough to know you have to wait for the right movement, the right tempo to make sure you hit the right notes so that it all comes together in the right way. It's how he waits so long, why he waits so long. Sebastian was the only one who'd ever truly understood why he needed to make sure the time was right but then Sebastian was never what anyone expected him to be either. No one expects an accompanist to be able to think, after all. The fact that he does is why he stood out - the fact that no one knows he does is why Jim picked him out. 

They always play together, plan together, destroy together. It's a glorious melody and in any case the best ballets, the best compositions always end with a fall. A rise and then a fall. Which is why Sherlock Holmes has always been perfect for his greatest work. 

Jim had glimpsed him long long ago (when the best tales always begin) back when Jim was James the Gawky Music Student whose smile reached his eyes but didn't, not really (he learned how to smile, to cry, to look soft with his whole face long long ago), he'd seen Sherlock Holmes when Sherlock was just a Royal Ballet School student, bought in for a Nutcracker staging. Even then, he'd seen how Sherlock was _right_ \- he danced with the perfection Jim had only found in his music up till then, perfectly in tune and in sync. That's when Jim had started planning, started thinking about the rise and fall of Sherlock Holmes. 

He'd thought about Giselle, then discarded it. Then he'd decided on The Red Shoes. It was perfect - the rise, the glory, the fall. The fall from pride and from heart, destroying so many others along the way. It was perfect, Jim thought and the best part was that no one would know but Sherlock. Sherlock would know, only after it was too late to stop the dance, to stop the play of the ballet to it's encore. The final curtain.

The best thing about finding out that Sherlock had a heart was finding that there were other players to be cast - that beautiful princess Mary, the kind and wise King Gregory and the sweet and noble Prince John. And then there was Mrs Hudson, the ballet mistress and heart, soul and steel of The Company. But first? Firstly, little Molly Hooper. Sweet little Molly, the newest accompanist, desperately in love with Sherlock - that would be who Jim would start with. 

It is a good place, Jim thinks, for the curtain to rise. 

-

Molly knows somewhere, it's hopeless. But she cannot help being in love with Sherlock, when he comes to life in her music, her works. She's had dreams of creating a ballet score, a proper one - one that would impress him, get him to notice her. And then, then there's John and Mary. Mary, Mary the Principal Ballerina - the princess with brains and a smile upon her face. Molly might have wished she could hate her but she doesn't because Mary is Mary and she is herself and that's fine, really. She could never be a ballerina and Mary doesn't compose. Oddly, strangely it's not John whose harder to not get jealous over. It's Gregory Lestrade - Greg who has a beautiful wife and daughter and who, somehow has Sherlock's friendship when she, Molly the pianist has had barely a glance from him. And Greg is handsome and kind and she has all kinds of a crush on him too and somehow, it's all become twisted around.

When she meets Irene, well, Irene is the last person Molly would have expected to notice her. 

But that's later. Right now there's Jim, Jim the composer and violinist with the gentle smile who always remembers her coffee order and sneaks in a pastry on cold mornings. He's sweet and they go to the British Museum together and talk about music and skulls and the science of composition. They work out they must have both studied in Florence around the same time and it's lovely - and they both love Italian composers, though Molly can make a case for the French and Austrians. They both love ballet, but do not dance. And he understands her fascination with Sherlock, does Jim, in his own sweet and gentle way.

That's what she thinks then. Because Jim's smile does reach his eyes, it really and truly does. 

-

He watches them, does Jim. The Princess, The King, The Prince and Sherlock. He watches and he waits and he thinks, until the time is right. Because this is very much not boring and he hasn't been this interested in a long long time because it's a challenge (for once). Dancers worthy to dance in his creations, Jim thinks, blissfully happy. It's almost a shame to destroy them.

  
**Put them on and your dream'll come true  
With no words, with no song  
You can dance the dream with your body on  
And this curve, is your smile  
And this cross, is your heart  
And this line, is your path**   


  
_The Red Shoes_ (Kate Bush)


End file.
